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Google CEO Says Privacy Worries Are For Wrongdoers
bonch writes "In a surprising statement to CNBC, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told reporter Maria Bartiromo, 'If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.' This will only fuel concerns about Google's behavior as it becomes an ever more powerful gatekeeper of information; though Google says it is aware of these concerns and has taken steps to be transparent to users about the information that is stored."
Well, I think judgment matters.
Then we get a voice over and a cutaway. Then the snippet in question is suspiciously selected with nothing preceding it. That's his direct quote and it was stupid to say 'maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place' but what was said before it seems to be edited. If the context is search engines (which I think it is), then what he says is true. As in 'if you're looking for ways to murder your husband, maybe you shouldn't be using the Google Search engine to find that information in the first place.' Here's what follows the inflammatory statement:
But if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines--including Google--do retain this information for some time ... um ... and it's important--for example that we are all subject to the United States Patriot Act--it is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities.
I don't want to sound like a fanboy bending over backwards to absolve Schmidt but I want to point out that the important message people should take away from this is simply that your searches are not private. Your searches leave the premises of your private property. They go to a semi-public resting place where--under the Patriot Act--the government has the ability to access them with little commotion.
I mean, if you enjoy doing something illegal like smoking weed, don't do it in public. You shouldn't be doing it in public in the first place. Do it in the privacy of your own home. If you go to a cafe or place of business and smoke weed, the owner and workers at that cafe might be obligated to call the authorities. Similarly if you're buying weed, don't use the Google search engine to do it.
I would like to hear his whole unedited statement.
My work here is dung.
No wonder he says that, given that Google is very likely almost a branch of the NSA. (I say almost, because they were funded independently but seem to have very close ties to the NSA since the beginning.) Also, privacy prevents Google from selling all your personal information to advertisers.
That's an arrogant statement by Schmidt (and yes, I read the whole thing). How often have we heard the "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" argument over the decades? Add Google to that long list - and it's not an honor roll! I guess "Don't be evil" is leaving the building. It was a matter of time, anyway.
Do your own thing. And overdo it!
Are the searches your property, or Googles? Really, if, truly, everything you write on the internet is your content, then you should have the right to revoke the distribution of that content. You can't have strong property rights only when it is convenient, you know.
This is my sig.
and sometimes it's your own government that will define you. imagine my surprise to find i just made somebodies watch list. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/16/napolitano-stands-rightwing-extremism/ i guess believing in my oath to the Constitution is enough to get me on a bad person list. it's way too easy to become a wrongdoer.
Same false argument has been put forward to defend of CCTV.
I prefer to shit in privacy, but it seems Eric Schmidt doesn't.
He should read this article.
Solove, Daniel J., 'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy. San Diego Law Review, Vol. 44, 2007; GWU Law School Public Law Research Paper No. 289. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=998565
I have long suspected that you and your company were, in fact, completely evil and not deserving of the hype surrounding you, nor the trust placed in you. I will now no longer be using my Gmail account, which I have had for years. The few things which are still sent there regularly, I will be changing to send to another address on my personal mail server. I will continue not responding to Voice and Wave invites. I will no longer be logging into Google for search results, nor will be accepting cookies from you, and as soon as I can find a reasonable search engine to replace you, I will not be coming back.
At least this will give me something to do this morning.
Drugs and alcohol are easy to find treatment for. Try finding a sympathetic ear if your struggling with child pornography, or worse, contemplating molesting a child; but would like to seek help because you know its wrong. There is plenty of help for the victims of abuse, but no help for would be abusers looking for someone to help them stop. All that you will find for those people is a crowd waiting to stone them or put them in jail for life.
There are lots of things which are perfectly legal yet something one would prefer to keep private.
If you're after an example that is perhaps more rhetorically useful (and safe for work), try the fact that Google requires all its staff to sign confidentiality clauses in their contracts and has NDAs with its partners, not just about inventions but also about business plans -- does that mean that Google's business is something that it shouldn't be doing, or is Eric planning on striking all those confidentiality contracts?
This is about the third or fourth time I have posted this on Slashdot. I'm glad I copied the text of the post when I saw it. Please note, the text is not mine. I just found it brilliant, that's all.
Please help metamoderate.
There is obviously a missing knowledge of human behavior here. People have an expectation of some level of privacy that is related to being modest (ie. clothing). When this is violated, a sense of mistrust ensues and this is what will harm Google if they are not careful.
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Personally I reckon they're probably worse.
Microsoft is out to get your money. They do this by selling you as many Microsoft products as they can(sometimes whether you want them or not) and occaisionally knifing a competitor. Not exactly perfect behaviour, but predictable and relatively harmless. Microsoft doesn't really care what you do with their products so long as you pay for them. Want to write political manifestos in Word, Microsoft doesn't care. Features of Word may make your document easier to tie back to you, but it's other people doing the tieing.
Google on the other hand has been collecting information on everything they can for as long as they've been around, more and more and more every year. They know about your web searches, if you hit a web site with analytics, they own everthing you create in their application framework, now they're going to start logging your DNS searches.
Why are they doing this? I don't really know. At best they've falled into the "perfect information" trap and and have convinced themselves that if they just knew more about people they could make the world better. It's a common pitfall for IT workers, particularly the kind who are bright enough to get hired at google and sufficiently social retarded to willingly work the kind of hours the company seems to expect. Even that's not exactly a great situation and there are plenty of alternatives which are far more worrying.
Sure they've got to turn this stuff over to every government they deal with who wants it, that's part of doing business. Companies who disagree with that sort of thing tend to fight it by limiting their logging to what is legally required though, and Google sure does't do that.
Stupid or not, one can think of it as a Freudian slip, or maybe his 'Tiger moment'. Google clearly has inflated its corporate ego to Galactic size. They assume (with some justification at the moment) that they can do as they please because they are too big, smart, and rich to have to worry about repercussions. So now they even baldly state where they are coming from, because they think it doesn't matter.
None of my illegal activities are trackable online, but, one could probably determine that I'm atheist, vasectomized, childfree, mocking of most naivety (ie, religion and various other cultural norms), vegan, polyamourous, and have a porn addiction.
None of those things are illegal, but I sure as hell don't want this to be accessible information. My Facebook page reveals nothing but the veganism, and I fear that day when my browsing habits are enough to make more information publicly known. (maybe I shouldn't be posting it here).
IANAL. However, this meme is based on this court decision: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Company
The article linked offers a refutation of this interpretation, which I am not competent to support or argue with. I ran across this meme first while reading the book version of The Corporation, which may have helped spread it lately.
Charles Fitzgerald, Microsoft program manager, (1996): "If you want security on the 'Net', unplug your computer."
Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems, (1999): "You, us folks, peasants, you already have zero privacy. Get over it."
Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, (2009): "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
Our corporate masters have always felt that our private lives are their property to abuse as they see fit.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
MS collects the same info via bing, msn, and even from Windows. To say that Google is worse is like saying that W was worse than Hitler or Stalin. He had actions SIMILAR to them, but nothing was over what any of them did. Likewise, Google has not been shown to have done anything worse. Yet.
However, I DO now think that with that statement, that Google SHOULD be looked at a big closer.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
You're right, you don't get Google fanboyism. You focus on all the possible harm Google could do with its information. Google fanboyism focuses on the opposite. I'm a Google fanboy. Why? Because they provide a ton of cool applications and tools, for "free". "Free" meaning that I don't have to send a check or swipe a credit card anywhere to use them whenever and wherever I want. Sure, I might be able to find free alternatives to most of these tools (e-mail, documents, maps, search, etc. etc.), but Google provides them all in one place and with a high standard of quality. And they're constantly coming out with more and more cool stuff, most of which has the potential to make my daily life experience better, simpler, more efficient, etc. How do they fund all this? They collect information about their users and sell it to advertisers, to allow them better target me with ads that will encourage me to buy their products. On principle, I have no problem with this. I'd rather see ads for movies or music or games or other things that might interest me, even if I almost never click on anything, and even if my clicks of curiosity never lead to a purchase. That's a lot better than seeing ads targeted at "the population" for things I don't need, like an SUV or a quit-smoking patch or a pair of earrings. I know that many people are interested in these products, but I'm not, and it's a complete waste of my time to be distracted by those ads. The sooner Google learns that its only chance to get a purchase out of me is to show me a special sale on new electronics or a cool new video game, the better. But what about my privacy? Well, I care about my privacy. I don't want everyone knowing my home address or my medical records or the sizes and locations of my bank accounts. But these are legal issues, not corporate ones. We get the correct law in place, stipulating that these pieces of information aren't to be disseminated, and then enforce the law with respect to Google and everyone else. Singling out Google and not applying the same scrutiny to every other company who can come into contact with this information is pointless. We can't reasonable expect Google to refuse to conform with the Patriot Act; it's the law, right or wrong, and it's our job as citizens to fix that, not Google's job as a corporation. So what about my search information? Shouldn't the contents of my searches be my own business? No. Are you kidding me? In my eyes, running a search through Google is the digital equivalent of walking into a mall or a convention and shouting "Hey, can anyone answer a question for me?". Only you're shouting to the whole world. There's no expectation of privacy here. As others have pointed out, your search has left the grounds of your home, and others have heard its contents. If you want the information, you have to accept that others will know you want the information. So how do you get information if you don't want others to know you're looking for it? You learn how to anonymize yourself in the eyes of the search tool. To continue my earlier analogy, you'd shout your question while wearing a mask so no one can identify you. Your query is still public, but you are not. Privacy ALWAYS comes down to personal responsibility. Know what precautions you can take when you don't want something known, and take them when appropriate. You can't expect the rest of the world to close its eyes and ears to you whenever you want it to, but you can learn to disguise yourself so that the world won't discover your identity, at least not without an intense devotion of resources. So yeah, I'm a Google fanboy. They've provided a tool to help me keep track of what information I'm sharing every time I use one of their applications, which is more than I can say of nearly every other company out there that has some of my private info on file. I trust Google... to a point. And when there's something I don't want the world to know, I take the appropriate measures to protect that information: not through bitching and moaning that someone else might hear and remember me when I make a digital statement through a search engine, but through making sure that there's no identifiable link between myself and that query.
People have generally described this as a big misstep on Schmidt's part. Maybe it is, but only in that he revealed a bit more of Google's attitude than they normally do.
Google has been prancing around for years saying, "oh, don't worry about our data collection. We're the GOOD guys! We even have a motto that says don't be evil, and in fact we're so good that it's not even official." In the meantime, they've been behaving just like any other smart corporation in a sensitive monopoly position. It amazes me that nobody in the media and damned few people in the industry seem to care about what they're doing, just that they've said "don't be evil" and so everything is OK.
So either Schmidt has revealed more than he meant to (which would be a misstep), or he realises that they are so powerful that they don't have to pretend anymore. You can be sure, however, that he did NOT misrepresent Google or its values.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
"Some tips to help keep your Google account safe: - Keep secrets! Never tell anyone your password, or your secret question and answer."
~ http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=29407
"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
~ Google CEO Eric Schmidt
Well, you heard it from the CEO himself: if google says you don't want anyone to know your account login info, maybe you shouldn't have any in the first place.
I can just see it ten years from now. "Google is too big to fail. We need to bail them out. Our whole country depends on Google's services to function. If we don't give them all the money they ask for, our economy will collapse."